Press conference of The Pirate Bay team

The founders of The Pirate Bay torrent tracker (TPB) are sued - they face up to two years in prison and a fine of $ 140,000. They also filed a collective civil suit from Warner Bros., MGM Pictures, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Sony BMG. They require a much more substantial compensation of $ 14 million.

In this regard, the TPB team held a press conference, which was attended by people from TorrentFreak. About what they wrote yesterday . Below is a translation of this conference.

At the very beginning, the TPB team stated that the entire trial could best be described as a theatrical production and that all the people involved in it are potential actors. They promised to make a reality show of this, moreover, Rasmus has already written a prologue to the show.
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The guys feel that, in general, things will not end quickly, however, whatever happens to them - the site will continue to function. “What are they going to do? They have already failed trying to close the site last time. Let them stand it again, ”Gottfried said. Peter Sunde noted that the lawsuit was not directed against the site, but against them, “the site lives its own life without us.”

Despite the fact that the TPB team faced heavy financial claims, they will not actually be satisfied. “I have so much debt in Sweden that I can never pay it back.” I don't even live there. Let him send me another bill - I will hang it framed on the wall, ”said Gottfried. Peter also echoed him: “It doesn't matter if they demand a million or a billion. We are not rich and we have no money to pay. They won't get a cent. ”

When asked whether it was normal to download protected content and not pay, Peter refused to answer, explaining that the question was not interesting and he was tired of hearing it.

Further, one of the correspondents asked: “Do you feel yourself being protected or are protecting the technology?”

Peter: “I think something in between. We have a personal responsibility for this. But, definitely, this is not the protection of technology, it is more like the protection of the idea of ​​technology and, what is perhaps more important in this matter, the release (from a political point of view) of technology and the non-admission of control over technology "entities" who do not like this technology " .

Gottfried added that the prosecutor was trying to focus more on individuals in this case.

According to Peter, when he was arrested, the police did not immediately begin to question him about the site, they were interested in his motivation: “During the interrogation, I was first asked if I wanted to talk about my ideology and political beliefs, not about my involvement in TPB.”

A reporter from the BBC asked about the current costs of supporting TPB, to which Peter replied: “I really have no numbers. We consume a lot of traffic and launch a new server weekly. ” ( Approx. transl. most likely he meant replacing the failed ones) Gottfried added that the tracker itself completely “eats” the channel at about 600 megabits, even more at the weekend. The price of iron is approximately $ 120,000.

At the end of the conference, Peter and Gottfried were asked to say what they thought about presenting them in the press.

Peter: “A very interesting question. There are some members of the journalistic community whom we don’t like, so we’ve not been invited to this conference and they are very angry with us. They are interested in speculation, not in the discussion of things. Uninvited journalists are not the ones who spoke negatively about us, but those who lie instead of publicly discussing the state of things. We have no problems with negative reviews in the press, there are a lot of people in this room who we don’t like, but we don’t care if they are ready for dialogue. However, I have to note that most of the press is positive about us, they focus on the situation with and around TPB, and not on specific personalities. ”

And in the end, Peter's comment: “I don’t think that TPB will be among the main trackers in the next five years. But, I think BitTorrent technology will improve. File sharing will always be there. People will tire of grinding with tongues about it. ”

The hearing will start tomorrow. (That is, today, an article in the final).